Chapter 2109: Dream Mouse

Eternal!

Judgment!

「Boom—boom—boom! Boom!! 」

The battle erupted instantly; after seeing through the illusion, Lin An decisively launched the first attack.

Of course, rather than calling it a battle, it was more like a one-sided slaughter.

His strength far exceeded that of an ordinary war star.

Under absolute attribute dominance, often a single punch or kick would cause those Heavenly Walkers he dragged into Judgment Space to explode on the spot, turning into a pile of bloody mush.

Moreover, perhaps these Heavenly Walkers were still within the illusion, being controlled by some force.

These Heavenly Walkers could only instinctively mobilize the power of rules, making stiff attacks.

Such strength was utterly unable to withstand a single blow before Lin An.

The battle was extremely boring.

But after just seven or eight seconds, aside from the points prompt still echoing in Lin An's ears, the entire underground space returned to silence.

Gazing at the field of corpses, Lin An exhaled lightly, turned his head, and locked his gaze on a spine fleeing like a worm not far away.

After a cold snort, Lin An flickered and instantly appeared behind the spine.

He grabbed it with a big hand.

Using his hyper-effective thinking, he had figured out what just happened.

As if in conversation, Lin An clenched the spine in his hand tightly, not worrying whether the Faith Power would destroy it.

「You have self-awareness? You know I won't believe it, nor will I go berserk to seize 「Equipment」? So you deliberately revealed a flaw, simulating the scene of these Heavenly Walkers falling for it? 」

Not a bad trap, but a bit lacking.

This segment of spine could drag both sides into the illusion and even control over a hundred Heavenly Walkers at once, but its control effect was too poor, causing the controlled Heavenly Walkers to also suffer a great drop in strength.

Therefore, after realizing it couldn't kill him, this spine segment straightforwardly simulated a second-layer illusion, attempting to trick him into voluntarily dispelling his Faith Power and invading his mind.

The spine kept twisting and struggling in his palm.

As Lin An's words fell, the spine suddenly trembled like a living thing. Soon, perhaps realizing something, it 'panicked' and stopped struggling, lying still as if dead.

This scene appearing before Lin An's eyes instantly became even more eerie.

This thing is truly alive, and it can even understand his words!

But now that it knows to play dead, it's a bit too late!

Lin An hesitated not, decisively mobilizing more Faith Power.

No matter what this thing is, he doesn't mind killing it outright first! He could tell that even if this spine turned into a dead object, its value wouldn't be small.

At the same time, perhaps sensing Lin An's unhidden killing intent, playing dead was useless.

In an instant, the scene changed again!

Zero point zero one seconds later, when Lin An could see clearly again, his eyes couldn't help but flash a strong look of astonishment!

!?

There's still a third-layer illusion!?

At this very moment, all he saw around him were indeed the corpses of the Heavenly Walkers he had slain, but the spine he grasped in his hand was clearly not a spine—it was a mouse's tail!

Squeak!

Lin An instinctively looked up, following this tail that stretched for kilometers.

Soon, he saw in a fissure split kilometers away a gaunt mouse squeaking desperately, begging for mercy.

At the same time, a faint yet intimately familiar cold mechanical sound rang out:

「Ding, Special Instance (Huangliang) npc issues you a quest: 」

【Current quest: Rescue the Dream Mouse captured by player Lin An】

「Quest reward: The Dream Mouse's gratitude」

Lin An:???

One minute later.

In the dark underground space filled with countless corpses, a long, narrow black shadow darted about nimbly.

Above the shadow, a humanoid figure rode atop it, holding a long tail as if it were a leash.

Riding on the Dream Mouse's back, Lin An appeared utterly calm, yet at this moment his heart surged with tumultuous waves.

Indeed, he rescued the Dream Mouse from his own hand, after receiving its gratitude he then captured it. This thing seems completely unaffected by other corpses, moving extremely fast underground, making it ideal for rushing.

But compared to capturing this mouse, Lin An now cared more about the business in his mind.

In his mind, the endlessly repeating system task refresh was like a broken machine, constantly sounding.

「Ding! Quest completed, gain the Dream Mouse's gratitude! 」

「Ding! Trigger quest, rescue the Dream Mouse! 」

「Ding, quest completed, gain... 」

No one knew just how astonished and unfathomable Lin An felt.

After a simple spiritual communication with this creature named the Dream Mouse, he spent a full half minute figuring out what was going on.

「You mean this place used to be your home? After your master died in battle, you hid here and survived on corpses? 」

「After those monsters destroyed this place, did you also awaken consciousness? 」

Squeak!

The mouse nodded, squeaking wildly, as if answering his words.

After confirming he hadn't misunderstood, Lin An gave a wry laugh and also roughly sorted out the whole story.

Sometime ago, or perhaps due to a mismatch in time flow, this instance named Huangliang was likely breached by the Starlight Alliance.

Unlike the instances he destroyed before, the Starlight Alliance's means are obviously stronger, directly freezing this instance in a state of collapse.

No one knows how the Starlight Alliance did it, nor why they did so.

In short, after taking control here, the instance's Doomsday System also encountered a problem, like a jammed machine, retaining only the mission function.

And the Dream Mouse, as the instance's native NPC, also after the system was lost, became a product half "wild" and half NPC.

The Dream Mouse, not daring to go out and not knowing what it should do, hid underground and has survived until now.

Unlike the outside world, where the stronger the strength, the higher the intelligence.

Originally, the clueless Dream Mouse was merely a pet for viewing, but during long-term hiding, it actually stumbled upon how to issue system tasks.

Moreover, the Dream Mouse discovered that as long as it "begs for mercy", it can use the system's Rule Ability while issuing tasks.

No, it should be said that it is using the ability of the instance's origin.

Lacking system control, the basic rules of the Yellow Millet Instance are unsupervised, like an ownerless pond, usable by any NPC.

Therefore, no matter how strong Lin An's mental power or how high his will, when facing this power, he still gets hit.

But after figuring these out, Lin An's doubts only grew deeper.

It is quite obvious that after the Starlight Alliance took control of this place, it is far from simply using it as a battlefield for selecting talents.

In the dark, Lin An always feels that behind this lies an unimaginable conspiracy.

Moreover, the arrangement for Number 77 to have him win first place and take the Divine Artifact has also become somewhat mysterious at this moment.